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Monday, February 07, 2011

The Good News is, You're Normal. The Bad News is, *This* is Normal

I got caught up in other things and never got around to telling you about my midwife visit.

I'm fine.  I'm normal.  I'm so normal, it's practically abnormal.

I got a bit of a patronizing smile over the weight thing, but once I explained that I was concerned because I'm also bloated and my hands are hurting, she realized that I was listing some of the symptoms of pre-eclampsia and took me very seriously.  My blood pressure is normal for a woman at my stage of pregnancy, I lack protein in my urine (sorry about that, that was possibly too much information?), and the weight gain is not really that severe, nor was it really sudden.  However, she told me to call her if the swelling got worse, because that could indicate something's going on and she's rather have me checked out again than wait until I start having convulsions.

So this weight thing - all over the internet and in all the baby books it says "a woman should gain between 25 and 35 pounds in the course of a healthy pregnancy."  They should all be shot.  I now know gobs of women who are gaining/have gained far more than that and it hasn't resulted in any problems whatsoever.

Despite the evilness of the internet, I had to return there for information because this pain in my fingers... sometimes numbness... had me a bit concerned and I wondered, WTF.  It wasn't really mentioned in my books, apart from one of the signs of pre-eclampsia, but I had noticed some women talking about pain like this in late pregnancy, so I was wondering if it was normal.  (This procedure of checking first, calling midwife in a panic second has so far worked very well.  A shocking number of rather disgusting bodily behaviors are completely normal during pregnancy.)

When you type "pain numbness pregnancy" into Google, you totally expect to find:
OMG - You are Dying and So Is Your Baby
Here's A List of Terrible Diseases You Have and So Does Your Baby
Call 911
Check Out This MILF Action!!!

Instead I got:
Boring, We All Get This
So Normal, Your Child Should Be Called Norm Al or Norma Al
Did You Seriously Think Pregnancy Was Easy and Pain Free?
Check Out This MILF Action!!!

Advice on handling the pain ranged from taking Tylenol PM to not sleeping on my side, because that can compress nerves and things.

Which leads me to a bit of a rant... I can't sleep on my back because I'll compress some major nerve and artery and kill myself and/or my baby and I can't sleep on my side because I'll lose all use of one or both arms and I can't sleep on my stomach because, DUH, I'm pregnant... exactly how am I supposed to sleep, oh wise Internet People???  I can't sleep flat because of acid reflux, I need to keep my feet elevated and now possibly my arms elevated, so basically I need to elevate everything but the baby above my heart.  Can I get myself shot into space for the last 6 weeks of pregnancy?  'Cause it sounds like the only way to solve these problems is to be in zero G.

I mentioned the acid reflux to the midwife, who immediately wrote the name of an antacid on a slip of paper.  BEST FREAKING DRUG EVER!  Right there in the information packet included in the medication (what, don't you read those?  You totally should, you learn some of the darnedest things about half lives and chemical reactions) it said SAFE FOR PREGNANT AND NURSING WOMEN.  I'm really sick of "like all medications, contact your physician before taking this medication if you are pregnant or nursing."  And they work!  Oh, how they work!  I still can't lay completely flat, because whatever is in my stomach will come up, but I can lay mostly flat and I'm not getting heart burn or acid reflux.  Genius!  They don't taste half bad either.  And I can keep eating chili, barbeque, Indian, and anything deriving from the cuisine from south of the Mason-Dixon line, because recommended meal plans for pregnant women are so bloody dull.

Look, I'm fat, I waddle, I'm retaining water and I'm leaking strange fluids from strange places, I can't go for long walks without needing a (rather large) bush to pee behind, I can't go on amusement park rides (although I think I'm going to ask my husband to let me stand on the front of the shopping cart like a hood ornament next time we go shopping), I can't get drunk and dance with abandon - do not tell me that I have to eat the most boring food on the planet at the same time!

Though this does beg the question: are jalapeños a fruit or a vegetable?

6 comments:

  1. As long as the anti-acid meds are working, I say go for it and eat as much hot and spicy stuff as you can--your child will thank you for it when it finally comes out, grows a bit, and talks. It's first word may be jalapeno.

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  2. Heather5:26 PM

    Vegetable

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  3. Anonymous5:34 PM

    All peppers are fruit? Seeds are on the inside...

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  4. Depends on whether you want to be botanical correct or culinary correct. They are fruits, but are considered culinariy vegetables.

    Tomatoes are also also fruits, and more specifically berries, just like strawberries are nuts, and yours truly is a nerd.

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  5. Anonymous1:52 PM

    STRAWBERRIES ARE NUTS?? WHAT THE WHAT?

    My mind is blown.

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  6. Its sometime confusing when you seek a suggestion over internet and you might have come across this in case of sleeping habits during pregnancy.As you mentioned you can't sleep on my back because you'll compress some major nerveand You can't sleep on your side and on stomach because, you are pregnant.

    ReplyDelete

Keep it clean, don't be mean....